A Conversation with Kate Washington, Author of Already Toast

Eldercare Illuminated

If you’re looking for a book to create an engrossing TV series, Kate Washington’s Already Toast should be high on your list. Published in March 2021, the book chronicles Kate’s life as a caregiver after her husband is diagnosed with a rare cancer. Lenore Tracey, host of Eldercare Illuminated, spoke with Kate about what it was like for her as the trajectory of her life is turned upside down.
Sailing into their 40s with no expectation of the disaster that was about to strike, Kate and her husband were raising two children, working, and enjoying successful careers in sunny California. This is the story of their family, plunged into the murky waters of caregiving. It highlights the distressingly inadequate systems that support American families when serious illness strikes. Kate learns caregiving while caregiving – scant on-the-job training for an unanticipated job. She shares how the experience enlightened her and changed her, how historical notions of women as caregivers fare in modern America, and how we might address some of the failings of a fragmented medical and social care construct that many of us will find ourselves immersed in, whether we like it or not.
About Our Guest:
Kate Washington is a writer in Northern California. Her book, Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America (Beacon Press, March 2021), shines a stark light on the experience of family caregivers. Largely left on their own to navigate the medical, insurance, work, and social support systems involved when a loved one becomes ill, caregivers are ill prepared and unsupported as they struggle to manage family and work responsibilities. With 53 million family caregivers in (Caregiving in the U.S. 2020, National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP), Already Toast is a must read for family caregivers, health care and social support workers, and policy makers.
Visit Kate’s website at https://www.kawashington.com/already-toast.html.